The Women, On Our First Approach,
Began Uttering Something In A Most Dolorous Voice;
They Then Squatted Themselves Down And Held Up Their Faces;
My Companion Standing Over Them, One After Another, Placed
The Bridge Of His Nose At Right Angles To Theirs, And Commenced
Pressing.
This lasted rather longer than a cordial
shake of the hand with us, and as we vary the force of the
grasp of the hand in shaking, so do they in pressing.
During
the process they uttered comfortable little grunts, very
much in the same manner as two pigs do, when rubbing
against each other. I noticed that the slave would press
noses with any one he met, indifferently either before or
after his master the chief. Although among the savages, the
chief has absolute power of life and death over his slave,
yet there is an entire absence of ceremony between them.
Mr. Burchell has remarked the same thing in Southern Africa,
with the rude Bachapins. Where civilization has
arrived at a certain point, complex formalities soon arise
between the different grades of society: thus at Tahiti all
were formerly obliged to uncover themselves as low as the
waist in presence of the king.
The ceremony of pressing noses having been duly completed
with all present, we seated ourselves in a circle in the
front of one of the hovels, and rested there half-an-hour.
All the hovels have nearly the same form and dimensions,
and all agree in being filthily dirty.
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